Silent Hill 4: The Room for XBox (PAL)

Henry Townshend finds himself trapped in his own cursed apartment. Only by exploring mysterious portals leading to disturbing alternate worlds will Henry begin to uncover clues as to why he is trapped. Such is the premise of Silent Hill 4 The Room, a more action-focused entry into Konami’s survival horror series. Features include a higher number of weapons and enemies than previous games in the series, changes to the environment in real time, shifts between the first- and third-person perspective, and various visual and control upgrades to the Silent Hill 3 engine. Levels include a forest, a prison and a hotel.

Silent Hill is a town where pure evil permeates the air and the soil and eventually consumes the people. It’s a soothing vacation spot that masks demon-worshipping cults and dark purpose. Each of the previous titles in the Silent Hill series of horror games has either outright taken place in the titular small town or has gradually been pulled there through some terrible inertia. Silent Hill 4: The Room breaks this trend, because it takes place in the neighboring city of South Ashfield and centers mainly on an ill-fated apartment building, a cursed apartment, and the man who lives in it. That’s not the only series tenet the game breaks. Silent Hill 4 pairs third-person and new first-person gameplay with an emphasis on combat and item management. The resultant hybrid has some flaws, but The Room retains the dark, disturbing soul that is the unsettling center of the Silent Hill experience.

Only for XBox. Not XBox 360.